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Why are militarization of the border and “enforcement-only” reforms bad ideas?

Enforcement-only reform often disregards human rights and civil liberties, wastes resources, divides communities, and perpetuates a culture of fear. Without expanding legal channels, border security and enforcement-only upgrades push illegal immigration further underground, resulting in significant increases in human trafficking and deaths amongst border crossers, and greater numbers of immigrants permanently living without documents in the United States. Finally, “enforcement-only” reform also fails to address the root causes of immigration: unfair trade practices that generate extreme poverty, inflexible visa laws, and a relatively consistent demand for labor. A new push for the mandate of Electronic Verification, a system that allows employers to verify employees’ legal status before they are hired is also a bad idea. It is expensive and filled with errors and flaws that hurt employers and their employees. Unless Congress legalizes unauthorized immigrants mandatory E-Verify will harm eight million unauthorized workers hurting the U.S. economy and the agricultural industry.